Brazil tracks humpbacks, eyes whale sanctuary

Posted: Thursday, November 28, 2002

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) - Scientists have wondered for years where humpback whales disappear to after they mate in the warm waters off Brazil's Atlantic coast in the spring, and show up three months later in Antarctica.

Now they're finding out. An international research team has tagged eight of the endangered mammals with transmitters and says it's already learning startling new things about whales and how they travel to the Antarctic more than 2,000 miles away every year.

Scientists hope that what they learn about the whales' migration and feeding patterns could help establish a whale sanctuary in the South Atlantic - a proposal whaling nations have stubbornly resisted.

"That's one of our main objectives," said Artur Andriolo, a professor of zoology at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora and a member of the research team. "Showing their migration routes can justify the scientific need to protect them."

Experts from the United States, Denmark and Brazil took part in the Whale Satellite Tracking Project, which followed a pod of humpbacks off the coast of Brazil.

The project marks the first time whales have been monitored that way in tropical seas, although others have been tracked in polar regions.